Whatcom County Planning Commission

**Commissioner Rud Browne** was the principal driver of the session, proposing fifteen of the seventeen motions and providing detailed policy rationale for each. His consistent position: Whatcom County's economic development efforts have failed primarily because of housing unaffordability and industrial land scarcity, and the comp plan should name these barriers explicitly rather than directing resources toward new programs or sector targeting. Browne drew heavily on his personal history as a Canadian investor who built his company in Bellingham, and on specific anecdotes including a failed attempt to recruit a cybersecurity company that was deterred by housing costs and industrial land constraints. **Commissioner Nicholas Greif** proposed the "living wage or above" terminology change and the vision statement/typo corrections. He also lives in eastern Whatcom County and provided firsthand perspective on the need for more accessible commercial development outside the Columbia Valley UGA. He voted against Motion 17, finding the single-family housing language inappropriate. **Commissioner Daniel Dunne** asked technical clarifying questions throughout, including an extended inquiry about the CEDS document and its relationship to Chapter 7. He consistently supported Browne's underlying goals while seeking to moderate the most declarative language. He voted against Motion 17 and for Motion 14 (housing/industrial barriers in the Coordination section). He also proposed the inclusion of both alternative home construction technology and renewable energy in the training programs policy. **Commissioner Suneeta Eisenberg** was an active participant who raised equity considerations, particularly around whether "food chain workers" would be an inclusive enough term across business sizes, and about the connotations of "promote" vs. "incentivize" vs. "recruit" for the Canadian business policy. She abstained on two motions (Motions 12 and 14) after stepping away briefly and acknowledged she had missed portions of the discussion. She opposed Motion 17, voted against it. **Commissioner Jim Hansen** was the most consistent skeptic of the evening's amendments, though he passed nearly all of them. He raised procedural questions (about whether motions needed to be moved before being amended), scientific/technical distinctions (between stream buffers and wetlands buffers), and political-economic arguments (that affordable single-family housing is a historical artifact of post-war prosperity, not a realistic planning target). He voted no on Motion 12 (east county rezoning) and Motion 14 (housing barriers language), and opposed Motion 17 most forcefully, calling affordable single-family housing a "myth." He did offer a friendly amendment to Motion 5 that replaced "principally determined" with "among the signif…

**Commissioner Rud Browne, on why housing and industrial land are the core economic issues:** "I really think it just boils down to two things that we don't do well. We don't build housing and we don't create land for industry. And a lot of the comprehensive plan points in sort of different directions. And I'm trying to get the reader to understand that we need to for the next 20 years really focus on two things if we want the economy to be strong." **Tyler Schroeder, on the living wage calcu…

Before the August 28 meeting, Chapter 7 of the 2025 Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan Update was a staff-drafted document focused primarily on updated statistics and incremental goal revisions. After the meeting: 1. **"High wage" is gone from Chapter 7.** The term "living wage or above" now appears wherever "high wage" previously appeared, shifting the plan's economic aspiration from top-quintile earnings to a broadly accessible wage floor benchmarked by MIT's living wage calculator. 2. **A new framing narrative has been added to the chapter.** The "Leverage Our Historical Strengths" section now appears before the Diversified Economy goals, explicitly naming housing and industrial land scarcity as the county's primary economic development constraints and grounding them in historical examples, including the 1980s Canadian business recruitment campaign that produced 3,000 jobs. 3. **Two new wetlands mitigation policies have been added.** Policy 7D-11 directs the county to consider allowing advanced wetlands and buffer mitigation credit creation as a permitted use in rural and agricultural zones — a gap in current zoning that the county already knows needs to be …

--- ### Meeting Overview The Whatcom County Planning Commission met on August 28, 2025 for a combined public hearing and work session on Chapter 7 (Economic Development) of the county's 2025 Comprehensive Plan Update. The commission reviewed, debated, and amended the draft chapter through a series of motions before voting unanimously to forward the chapter to the County Council. --- ### Key Terms and Concepts **Comprehensive Plan:** A long-range planning document required by Washington State's Growth Management Act that guides land use, housing, transportation, economic development, and other county policies over a 20-year horizon. Whatcom County is required to update its plan in 2025. **Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS):** A document approved by the County Council — most recently in 2022, covering through 2027 — that guides economic development priorities. The Port of Bellingham's economic development team is currently working on the 2027–2031 update. **Associate Development Organization (ADO):** The designated local organization responsible for coordinating economic development efforts. In Whatcom County, the Port of Bellingham serves this role. **Living Wage:** A wage level sufficient to cover basic necessities such as housing, food, and health care. The MIT Living Wage Calculator is a commonly cited reference. For Whatcom County, this figure is approximately $24.66/hour for one adult, or $32.26/hour per adult for a two-adult, two-child household. **Shovel-Ready (or Pad-Ready) Industrial Land:** Land where all infrastructure — roads, water, sewer, power — is already in place, so that a property owner can proceed directly to a building permit. Considered a key factor in attracting employers. **Urban Growth Area (UGA):** A boundary designated under the Growth Management Act that identifies where urban-level development will occur over a planning period. Expansions or changes to UGAs are a major focus of the 2025 comp plan update. **Land Capacity Analysis (LCA):** A technical analysis that estimates how many housing units or jobs a jurisdiction can accommodate within its existing zoned land, accounting for critical areas, infrastructure, and other constraints. **Wetlands Mitigation / Mitigation Bank:** When development impacts wetlands, developers are often required to restore or create wetlands elsewhere to compensate. A mitigation bank is a large-scale pre-established mitigation site that can sell "credits" to developers who need to offset impacts. **Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP):** A USDA program in which farmers are paid to rent land to the federal government for conservation purposes — typically planting riparian buffers along streams — for up to 15-year renewable terms. In Whatcom County, USDA unilaterally cancelled over 200 contracts roughly two years ago, leaving farmers with trees on farmland and no compensation. **BEAD Funding:** Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funding — a federal program administered through the Washington State Broadband Office — aimed at expanding rural broadband access using a mix of fiber, 5G, and satellite technology. **EDI Fund / RCW 82.14.370:** The Economic Development Investment Fund, supported by a rural sales tax authorized under this state statute. Whatcom County uses this fund to support the Port of Bellingham's economic development team. **GMA (Growth Management Act):** Washington State law requiring counties and cities of certain size …